Cell culture apparatuses have ports for introducing cells, culture media, or other fluids into cell culture chambers. Often, caps are used to seal the ports when fluids or cells are not being introduced to prevent contamination of the cell culture chamber. In many instances the caps are threaded and may engage external threads on the port to twist the cap onto the port. An advantage of such twist caps is that they can be readily removed to access the cell chamber port. At early stages of research or development it is often desirable to repeatedly twist on and twist off the cap to obtain samples from the culture chamber or introduce agents or fluid into the culture chamber.
However, at later stages of development or validation for purposes of regulatory approval, it is often desired or required that the culture chamber be closed or sealed. While twist caps can be used for such purposes, it is often difficult to ensure that the cap is properly seated; e.g., not canted, or that the cap will not accidentally be removed.
Accordingly, different culture apparatuses are often employed for purposes of early research or development and later stages of development or validation. The earlier stages employing a device with a readily removable cap, and the later stages employing a device with a less easily removable cap. However, switching culture apparatuses during these stages is often undesirable, as the results obtained in the first culture apparatus may not be repeatedly observed in a second different culture apparatus.